Saturday Night Live/Danny DeVito/R.E.M.

Danny DeVito/R.E.M.
Season 25, Episode 8
Airdate	December 11, 1999
Production Number	1126
Written by	Tina Fey (head writer) Kevin Brennan Robert Carlock Jerry Collins Steven Cragg Tony Daro Al Farahnakian Tina Fey Hugh Fink Richard Francese Steve Higgins Adam McKay Dennis McNicholas Lorne Michaels Paula Pell J.J. Philbin Matt Piedmont Michael Schur T. Sean Shannon Andrew Steele Scott Wainio Robert Smigel Adam McKay (cartoon)
Directed by	Beth McCarthy Miller David Wachtenheim Robert Marianetti (cartoon)
← 25x07 Christina Ricci/Beck	25x09 → Jamie Foxx/Blink 182
Saturday Night Live — Season Twenty-Five

Danny DeVito/R.E.M. is the eighth episode of the twenty-fifth season of Saturday Night Live, and the four hundred and seventy-fifth episode overall.

Guest Stars: Danny DeVito (Host), R.E.M. (Musical Guest)

Special Guests: Al Franken (Himself), Joe Franken (Himself)

Episode Breakdown

• NBC Special Report: Tom Brokaw (Parnell) interviews Arnold Schwarzenegger (Hammond) regarding his film End of Days and the possibility of the world ending on December 31, 1999. Schwarzenegger assures Brokaw that, while the film is great, the world will not end, and everything will continue as before on January 1, 2000.
• Danny DeVito's Monologue: DeVito says this his fifth time hosting the show, and he is the last host of the 20th century. To celebrate his induction into the "Five Timers' Club," Oteri and Ferrell present him with a gift, a Mr. Peepers (Kattan). DeVito feeds Mr. Peepers an apple and sings "Silent Night" with Mr. Peepers, but Mr. Peepers force-feeds DeVito an apple and bursts through the background.
• Press Conference Play Set: A commercial for a kids' play set for making your own press conferences featuring a kid explaining to his mother (Gasteyer) how a baseball broke a dining room window.
• Delicious Dish - Y2K Aftermath: Margaret Jo (Gasteyer) and Terry (Shannon) host a show from June 2000, six months after the Y2K bug has caused the end of Western civilization. Although terrorized by gangs and wild dogs and lacking any real food, they welcome their guest, Chef Willy Bouchet (DeVito), who feeds them "New England clam chowder" made from White-Out, dice and pepper and "pan-seared Dristan tablets."
• Mango - Mango's Christmas: After a show, Mango (Kattan) tells his bouncer (Sanz) he will be going home for Christmas. There, he has a tense reunion with his mother (Gasteyer), brother (Ferrell) and father Guava (DeVito). That night, Mango is visited by a Christmas fairy (R.E.M. member Michael Stipe), who takes Mango into the past to see Guava as a young man. Mango learns Guava was a male stripper in the 1940s who was obsessed over by celebrity Jimmy Stewart (Fallon), just as Mango is obsessed over by male celebrities today. Mango realizes his father wanted a better life for him and has a tearful reconciliation the next morning with his family.
• Boston Teens - Metal Shop: Sully (Fallon) and Zazu (Dratch) introduce their watchers to their metal shop teacher, Vern Hilbert (DeVito), who is overly protective of his son Frankie (Sanz). Hilbert says he was once a roadie for the Cars who lost his eye in a fight. The fun ends when Frankie gets his hair caught in the lathe and Vern has to shear it off.
• The Ladies' Man - Happy Holidays from the Ladies' Man: Ladies' Man Leon Phelps (Meadows) sings a Christmas song for the ladies.
• TV Funhouse - Fun with Real Audio: The Year in Journalism 1999: Clips include Barbara Walters becoming sexually aroused while watching her own interview with Monica Lewinsky; Jim Gray interviewing and being sexually molested by Roberto Benigni; Tim Russert and David Gregory reporting on the death of John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Gregory throwing a rock through their window to encourage their involvement; Bryant Gumbel interviewing Bill Clinton, who is distracted by the live audience; Jim Avila disrupting school during the return to Columbine; Gray interrupting a Dateline NBC story on cancer; Matt Lauer, Katie Couric and Peter Jennings braving shark-infested waters to cover the Kennedy funeral.
• Weekend Update
  • Al Franken ends the 1990s by declaring the next millennium to be the "Al Franken Millennium," but he is interrupted by his surly teenaged son Joe, who is angry at Al and embarrassed to have been used for the "Joe Franken Decade" of the 1990s.
• Great Beyond: R.E.M. song.
• Sally O'Malley - Sally O'Malley's Rockette's Audition: The Rockettes' auditioner (DeVito) kicks out a perky auditioner (Dratch) and flirts with a sexy ingenue (Oteri), but everything changes when he meets Sally O'Malley (Shannon), who gets the role even though she is fifty.
• Oh No, Not My Baby!: Two Brooklyn mothers (DeVito & Morgan) testify as character witnesses for their sons in a trial. They sing a version of "I Just Called to Say I Love You," which convinces the judge (Meadows) to let their sons go.
• Man on the Moon: R.E.M. song.

Notes

"Live from New York, It's Saturday Night!"

• Chris Parnell as Tom Brokaw and Darrell Hammond as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Music

• Silent Night, performed by Danny DeVito and Chris Kattan: This traditional Christmas carol was originally written in German (as "Stille Nacht") in the early 19th century by Austrian priest Joseph Mohr, who wrote the lyrics, and Franz Xavier Gruber, who wrote the music.

• Great Beyond, performed by R.E.M.: A single written specifically for the movie Man on the Moon. This is the only lyric song written for the film by R.E.M.

R.E.M. performs "Man on the Moon."

• I Just Called to Say I Love You, performed by Tracy Morgan and Danny DeVito: A 1984 single by Stevie Wonder as he shunned his soul and funk roots of the 60s and 70s and turned to more pop-based efforts. It was first heard in the 1984 film The Woman in Red.

• Man on the Moon, performed by R.E.M.: A single from the 1992 album Automatic for the People, it became one of R.E.M.'s biggest all-time hits. The song is about and dedicated to performance artist/comedian Andy Kaufman—who made frequent "Special Guest" appearances on Saturday Night Live in its early days. (Lead singer Michael Stipe wears a T-shirt in both musical performances featuring Kaufman's face superimposed on the Moon.) In 1999, a few days after this episode was aired, the film Man on the Moon, a biopic of Kaufman's life starring Jim Carrey and directed by Milos Forman, was released. R.E.M. wrote the original score for the film and the lyric song "Great Beyond." Of course, their song "Man on the Moon" was the main title theme, as well.

Trivia

The Show

• First Appearance: The sketch "NBC Special Report" marks Darrell Hammond's first impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger on SNL. This would become one of Hammond's more popular recurring impressions.

• Five Timers' Club: Oteri and Ferrell give DeVito a Mr. Peepers to celebrate his induction into the "Five Timers Club." This is a referback to a sketch from 16x08 - Tom Hanks/Edie Brickell and New Bohemians, which marked Hanks' fifth time as host. During his monologue, Hanks left to hang out in the Five Timers' Club Lounge, where he met then-fellow five-time hosts and/or musical guests Steve Martin, Elliott Gould and Paul Simon. When Hanks performed the sketch in 1990, he was the eighth person to join the club, following Buck Henry (3x06 - Buck Henry/Leon Redbone), Martin (3x18 - Steve Martin/The Blues Brothers), Gould (5x11 - Elliott Gould/Gary Numan), Chevy Chase (11x02 - Chevy Chase/Sheila E.), Simon (11x16 - Catherine Oxenberg and Paul Simon/Ladysmith Black Mambazo), Randy Newman (12x06 - Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short/Randy Newman) and Candice Bergen (15x20 - Candice Bergen/Notting Hillbillies). However, technically, this appearance was not DeVito's fifth appearance as host, but rather his sixth. Clearly, his induction into the "Five Timers' Club" with this episode does not count his second hosting gig, in which he co-hosted with his wife, Rhea Perlman. Regardless, between the time of Hanks' induction in 1990 and DeVito's declaration of his induction in this episode, the club had grown by seven members: James Taylor (17x09 - Steve Martin/James Taylor), DeVito (18x10 - Danny DeVito/Bon Jovi), John Goodman (19x19 - John Goodman/The Pretenders), Tom Petty (with or without the Heartbreakers; 20x06 - John Turturro/Tom Petty), Alec Baldwin (20x08 - Alec Baldwin/Beastie Boys), Sting (22x15 - Sting/Veruca Salt) and Bill Murray (24x14 - Bill Murray/Lucinda Williams). Some have also claimed Dave Grohl as a member as of 25x04 - Dylan McDermott/Foo Fighters, although he has never been individually listed as host or musical guest, due to the fact that he appeared twice as a member of Nirvana, once as a Heartbreaker and twice subsequently as a member of the Foo Fighters.

• Al Franken Decade: Franken's declaration of the "Al Franken Millennium" is the third in a trilogy of Weekend Update appearances. In the last WU of the 1970s, Franken declared the 1980s would be the "Al Franken Decade." In the last WU of the 1980s, he declared the 1990s would be the "Joe Franken Decade," in honor of his then-five-year-old son.

• Goodbyes Cameo: Courtney Love, who acted in the film Man on the Moon, can be seen standing just behind Stipe in the closing credits, although she does not perform in the show or appear in any of the sketches.

Quotes

• Margaret Jo McCullin: It seems like only yesterday that New Year's came in with a bang. And then another louder bang. Really loud, really loud bang.
  Terry Rialto: It sure was. It was Jesus knocking at the door.
  Margaret Jo: No, it wasn't.
  Terry: No. It was a roving sex gang.

• Leon Phelps: But it does not matter because no one should be sad this time of year. Unless, of course, you are old or a man pretendin' to be a woman. Yes, I have fallen for that before, but I will never let that happen again. Because there is nothin' worse than reachin' for a slice of butter and endin' up with a stick.